The words rang out, firm as steel, louder than the fire behind us.
Alaric froze. The anger still burned in his eyes—but it was swallowed by something fiercer. Fear. Pride. Awe. His jaw tightened, unable to mask the tremor beneath his growl.
“You sound,” he murmured, “as if you’d command the sea itself if it dared rise against you.”
Veyrion didn’t waver. He held my eyes with unshaken certainty, as though he’d been waiting for this moment—had always known it would come. A slow smile curved his mouth, reverent and unyielding. “At last,” he said.
The sea was deceptively calm.
Sails snapped softly overhead as the ship cut through open water, the horizon a clean blade of steel and sky. Charts lay spread across a barrel, weighted with a compass and a salt-stained dagger. Voices stayed low—measured, controlled—as they mapped patrol routes, defensive lines,
The fragile ways Thalassia might still be protected if the tides turned against them.
“If they come through the eastern trench, we can funnel them here,” one voice said, tapping the parchment. “Force proximity. Buy time.”
Time. That was all any of them were trying to steal. A cry split the air.
A raven burst from the clouds, wings beating hard as it veered toward the ship. It circled once—twice—then dove, landing awkwardly on the railing. A strip of crimson ribbon was tied to its leg.
No one spoke as the message was freed.
“The Veil,” one of the Covenant men rasped. “The Veil—”
A beat.
Then, softly—devastatingly—“The Veil has fallen.”
The words struck harder than shackles. Harder than salt-burn. Thalassia. I had never truly belonged there—not beneath the Veil, not under Meris’s watch, not in the halls of the Tidekeepers where whispers clung to me like seaweed. But it was the closest thing to home I had ever known. Its reefs had cradled my first breath. Its currents carried my childhood songs. Its people—though they had never fully claimed me—were still my people.
And now it lay bare. A hollow ache opened in my chest, deep and restless. I had fled Thalassia searching for answers, for freedom, for something beyond the cage it offered. But I would not let it fall to poachers and carrion-hunters.
“I won’t let them—or anyone—die in nets and chains,” I said, my voice carrying.
Alaric shook his head. “Poachers will keep coming, wave after wave. We can’t fight them all. There are too many.”
The fire inside me surged, cutting through the tremor in my chest. “Then we get the Crescent pieces back first.”
Veyrion’s eyes narrowed, watchful. Alaric frowned, suspicion flickering across his face.
“It’s part of me,” I pressed, the words raw in my mouth. “My power—torn from me, trapped in those shards. Every piece scattered leaves me weaker than I should be. If I find them—if I put them back together—I can fight. I can protect them.”
“My sister is there,” I whispered, the words cutting. “If the poachers breach the reefs, if they reach the kingdom… she won’t stand a chance. None of them will.”
I forced myself to keep speaking, though my throat burned. “There aren’t enough Abyssal Sentinels to hold them back. A handful of guardians against hundreds of poachers with nets, with Silver Salt, with gods know what else.” I shook my head. “They won’t be ready. They could never be ready.”
I looked between them, fire warring with ache. “That’s why we need the Crescent Artifact. With it, I can stand where they can’t. I can fight where the Sentinels will fall. Without it…” My voice broke, but I didn’t stop. “Without it, Thalassia doesn’t stand a chance.”
Silence pressed down, thick as the deep.
Alaric’s storm-gray eyes burned, his jaw set, fury trembling at the edges of his control. I could feel his refusal forming—inevitable—
But Veyrion moved first.
He stepped from the rail with the slow certainty of a rising tide; eyes locked on mine. “She is right,” he said, his voice carryingacross the deck like a war-drum. “Thalassia cannot stand against this storm alone.”
Firelight caught the scars inked across his skin, making them glow like runes. His gaze never wavered. “The Crescent Artifact is no trinket. No prize. If her power is trapped within it, then it was never meant for vaults or myths.” His mouth curved, fierce and reverent all at once. “It was meant to be returned. To her. We will help her reclaim it.”
The words rang out like prophecy, loosening something deep inside me.
